This invention relates to a hand-operated tool for attaching slotted weights to a line, such as by crimping split-shot sinkers to a fishing line.
It is common practice to use weights for sinkers for fishing line. Such weights are usually made of lead, such as lead shot, and formed with a slot on one side. The fishing line is inserted into the slot, and the weight is then crimped around the line.
Weights are most often attached using a pair of pliers. A weight having a pre-formed slot is aligned in the end of a pair of pliers. The slot in the weight must be positioned so the line can be placed into the slot in the weight. The pliers are then squeezed together to pinch the weight onto the line.
Another practice in attaching a slotted weight to a fishing line requires the fisherman to hold the slotted weight between his thumb and index finger and place the line into the slot in the weight with his other hand. The fisherman then attaches the weight to the line by biting the weight with his teeth, thus crimping the weight onto the line. The weights are usually made of lead so that the crimping action can take place relatively easily, but it is a tedious manual operation, particularly when a number of lines are to be provided with weights or when a number of weights are attached to a single line.
Problems also arise for fisherman to get a slotted weight out of its container, properly position it on the leader or line, and then crimp it tightly into place. The small size of the weights makes holding them in the fingers very difficult, particularly when the hands are wet or cold.
Removing a weight is also laborious and time consuming. It is difficult to hold the small spherical weight while attempting to insert a blade into the original slot, and then apply the proper pressure to the blade without cutting the line. A sudden inadvertent rolling movement of the spherical weights can result in a ruined line or a cut finger. For this reason, it is often easier to cut the line and remove the weight, but it is often undesirable and otherwise unnecessary to cut the fishing line.
In an attempt to facilitate the application of slotted weights to fishing line, many devices have been devised, as noted for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,583,202, 3,731,400, and 3,914,976. In each of these devices pre-slotted weights are loaded into a relatively complex magazine-type implement for a progressive feeding and mounting of the pre-formed weights. Many of these devices have also required a relatively expensive, specially formed chain or length of connected pieces of shot. The relatively complicated construction of the tool or of the specially formed weights was required to provide a slot on the weight in the proper alignment in the tool for insertion of the fishing line. Conventional weights are made from spherical lead shot, and it is extremely difficult to properly orient these spheres in an automatic tool with the slot in the proper position for insertion of the fishing line.